In this Context interview, Pavol Demes, an internationally recognized NGO leader, a former government official, and also an author and photographer, spoke about about the 25th Anniversary of the Velvet Revolution and the current state of democracy in Slovakia, as well as about concerns over Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.

"There was a certain amount of naiveté rooted perhaps in the mistaken idea that hope and change -- so effective in getting the president elected -- were somehow relevant to the world of Middle Eastern politics," writes Aaron David Miller.

In the United States alone, ongoing partisan battles have raised questions about the ability of the often self-proclaimed “world’s greatest democracy” to meet its most basic obligations. Have these failures, real and perceived, damaged the ability of democracies around the world to promote democratic governance as the solution to a wide range of challenges and problems?

Crowds of protesters are shrinking, talks are scheduled, but frustrations on both sides remain. While many in the press and elsewhere are quick to reference the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, Robert Daly explains how what’s happening today is different in many ways.

"This is a key moment for the students. The chief executive is certainly not going to leave and the crowds are now smaller than they have been; it is reasonable to assume that those who remain are more radical, are willing to go a little bit further," says Robert Daly.

"It's the reality that we're being pulled inexorably like a moth to a flame not just toward a military conflict with Assad, but toward bearing the responsibility for fixing -- or worse for creating -- the new Syria...we may well end up in the very place U.S. President Barack Obama has willfully tried to avoid: nation-building," writes Aaron David Miller.